RIP Crystal

Yesterday someone asked a college-aged cashier at Out of the Blue Seafood in Hampton Bays, who was handing us live lobsters to take pictures with, "do you ever get attached to them?" He first thought we meant "do they ever attach to you" and turned his hand upside down to show how the lobster on it—technically in hibernation—would cling to him. Only after clarification did he tell us about Crystal, the seventeen pound bright blue lobster the restaurant received. Everyone was so awed by Crystal that they decided not to eat her, and instead kept her in a tank in the basement. Did you know that the oldest known lobster in history was named George and lived to be one hundred and forty years old? George weighed forty-four pounds! After a year in the tank in the basement, Crystal started to slow down, so the guys brought her out to the bay behind the restaurant to be released. They put Crystal in the water and she immediately died. Then they ate her.